INDONESIA
Eruption in quake-hit area
A volcano erupted yesterday morning on the same central island as an earlier earthquake and authorities warned planes about ash. Mount Soputan in North Sulawesi Province spewed ash 6km into the sky. No evacuations were immediately ordered. A government volcanologist said it is possible the eruption was accelerated by the 7.5 magnitude earthquake in Central Sulawesi on Friday last week. Nazli Ismail, a geophysicist at University of Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, said there was no concrete evidence to show they are linked. “People talk about the butterfly effect,” he said. “So it is possible for the earthquake to trigger the volcano eruption, but it’s not conclusive.” Soputan’s eruption status was raised from an alert to standby 4km from the summit and up to 6.5km to the west-southwest.
SOUTH AFRICA
Bag designer named envoy
A luxury handbag designer in Palm Beach, Florida, has reportedly been chosen by US President Donald Trump as the next US ambassador. The appointment of Lana Marks, whose products sell for US$10,000 to US$400,000, would be likely to cause some surprise: Marks was born in South Africa, but has not lived there for more than 40 years. The post has been vacant since former US ambassador Patrick Gaspard resigned in 2016. Trump’s choice would still have to be approved by the US Senate. News reports appear to be based on an unusual leak from within the Department of International Relations and Cooperation.
AFGHANISTAN
Suicide attack kills 13
A suicide attack on a political rally on Tuesday killed at least 13 people, officials said, as the nation braces for an escalation in violence ahead of this month’s legislative election. The attack is the first suicide assault since campaigning officially began on Friday last week for the long-delayed ballot. More than 40 people were wounded, some critically, when the militant blew himself up in Nangarhar Province among supporters of candidate Abdul Nasir Mohmmand, provincial governor spokesman Ataullah Khogyani said. Mohmmand survived the attack, Khogyani said, but did not specify if the candidate had been hurt. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, SITE Intelligence Group reported.
AUSTRALIA
‘Tampon tax’ rescinded
After almost two decades of political wrangling, the so-called “tampon tax” was scrapped yesterday. When a goods and services tax was introduced in 2000, health products such as condoms and sunscreen were exempt from the 10 percent charge, along with most foods, but women’s hygiene products were not. Years of outcry followed, with “stop taxing my period” campaigns and staunch activism from groups like the “menstrual avengers.” However, a meeting of state and territory treasurers yesterday agreed unanimously to scrap the tax as of January next year.
THAILAND
‘The Beach’ bay closes
Maya Bay, immortalized in the 2000 movie The Beach, is to be closed indefinitely to allow it to recover from the impact of tourists, an official said yesterday, as a temporary ban on visitors expired. It was in June shut for four months due to beach erosion and pollution as the white-sand paradise sagged under pressure from thousands of day-trippers. However, a survey of the problem made clear that the short-term fix was not going to work and that the damage was worse than originally thought.
UNITED STATES
Pompeo to visit N Korea
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is heading to North Korea for another round of talks aimed at getting Kim Jong-un to give up nuclear weapons. Department of State spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Tuesday told reporters that Pompeo would meet with Kim on Sunday, following a day-long visit to Japan. It would be Pompeo’s fourth visit to North Korea since he became secretary of state. He made an earlier trip there, in April, when he was director of the CIA. “Obviously these conversations are going in the right direction and we feel confident enough to hop on a plane to head there,” Nauert said.
GREENLAND
Coalition agreement reached
The autonomous Danish Arctic territory on Tuesday reached a coalition accord to form a new government, ending three weeks of political crisis. Early last month, the left-wing pro-independence Partii Naleraq quit the coalition led by the social democrat Siumut party, leaving the government without a majority in the local parliament. The coalition collapsed over differences about the funding of a planned upgrade of the territory’s airports, with Naleraq opposed to Copenhagen’s direct financial participation in the project. Prime Minister Kim Kielsen said the new “coalition accord is tighter than the last time.”
SAUDI ARABIA
Post fears for Saudi writer
The Washington Post says it is concerned for the safety of a Saudi Arabian columnist for the newspaper who apparently went missing after going to the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. The Post issued a statement early yesterday saying it has been unable to reach Jamal Khashoggi, who has been critical of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s rise to power. Khashoggi has been living in a self-imposed exile in the US. Eli Lopez, the Post’s international opinions editor, said: “It would be unfair and outrageous if he has been detained for his work as a journalist and commentator.” Saudi Arabian officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
FRANCE
Daring escapee arrested
A gangster who made a Hollywood-style helicopter jailbreak has been found after three months on the run. Redoine Faid, 46, a serial robber of banks and armored vehicles and a fan of Hollywood mafia heroes, was arrested in the early hours of yesterday morning in the Oise area north of Paris with his brother and two other men. A vast manhunt was launched after Faid’s daring escape from a prison near Paris on July 1, in which two heavily armed accomplices set off smoke bombs then used angle grinders to break through doors and whisk him to a waiting helicopter.
UNITED STATES
Star Wars victim of trolls
How much did movie fans hate Star Wars: The Last Jedi? Perhaps not as fiercely as social media might suggest, according to a US study, which found that 50.9 percent of negative tweets about the movie came from bots, trolls or political activists, some of whom might be Russian. A study by University of Southern California research fellow Morten Bay, released on Monday, analyzed the language, Twitter handles and IP addresses of more than 1,200 tweets sent to Last Jedi director Rian Johnson’s Twitter handle in the seven months after the film’s release. Bay said they appeared to be using the debate around the film “to propagate political messages supporting extreme right-wing causes and the discrimination of gender, race or sexuality.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not